20 years in the making, space tourism is now ready to launch
Twenty years ago, traveling to space commercially was only a dream for the British billionaire Richard Branson. Back in 2004, he started his ambitious project, Virgin Galactic, which aims to provide customers a trip into space. The company made substantial progress in recent years, achieving its first suborbital flight in December 2018. Virgin Galactic became the first commercial spaceflight company to list on the stock market in October 2019.
Now, the 70-year-old Branson realized this dream when they successfully set off to the edge of space last July 11, upstaging rival billionaire, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who is set to fly on July 20.
The Virgin Galactic team’s successful flight to the edge of space firmly established themselves in the history books as pioneers in space tourism. A journey to space is almost within reach for a few, as a seat is reported to if cost a few thousand USD. But with technology going on warpspeed these days, maybe a it’ll be as easy as booking a trip to Boracay in a few years. In the meantime, we can look to people like Branson, Bezos and even the notorious Elon Musk, to pave the way to commercial space travel.
The Rivals
For now, Branson has surpassed his fellow billionaires, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and SpaceX Elon Musk, but both men have equally ambitious plans for space tourism, like extending venture to the moon and even Mars.
Bezos is set to launch into space on July 20, together with his company, Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. Bezos will be accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos, American aviator Wally Funk, and a fourth passenger who won the auction for the remaining seat with a winning bid of US$28 million (£20.1 million). Obviously there is no room for seat sales for now.
In the long run, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin will be competing to take paying customers on suborbital flights. The two companies will also obtain revenue from taking science experiments and researchers into space. As for Musk’s SpaceX, it plans to send four passengers on a three-day orbit around the earth, circling it in the Crew Dragon capsule later this year.
Through this initiative, they also came up with some innovative implementation of circular economy principles like SpaceX’s embrace of reusable rockets, which has drastically reduced costs. As of this date, it’s becoming a growing trend as private capital is now forecast to increase almost threefold by 2040 to become a US$1 trillion industry (£719 billion).
How much is the ticket?
Branson’s Virgin Galactic plans to start commercial space tourism flights early next year. This is good news for those 600 aspiring space tourists that made reservations years ago with a reported price of $250,000. Since there’s an anticipation for a rise in demand, the company plans to produce dozens of spacecrafts in the near future.
Though controversial, as many point out the many other ways these billionaires could spend their money and time on, Bezos, Branson and Musk have made serious advancements, and brought some hope to many weary of staying home for two years now. The idea of space exploration has undoubtedly renewed spirits and entrepreneurial zeal for seemingly out of this world dreams.
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